J & K Info Commission Rejects RTI without
Citing any Reason
SIC
Disregards RTI Plea under “Life & Liberty Clause”
JAMMU,
04/May/2014: Jammu and Kashmir State Information
Commission in utter violation of the Right to Information Act has rejected an
RTI application without citing any valid reason for it. Public Information
officer of the SIC has failed to provide information to an information seeker
within stipulated period of time and yet even after lapse of time did not
intimate him anything.
Earlier, RTI
activist Raman Sharma had filed an RTI application under ‘Life and Liberty
Clause’ with the commission office at
Jammu on 28/April/2014, it is worth to mention here that as per section 7(1) of
the J & K RTI Act 2009, the Public Information officer is under legal
obligation to provide the information within 48 hours where the information
sought concerns the life or
liberty of a person, though for matters
other than ‘life and liberty’ the information may be provided within maximum
limit of 30 days.
While sharing details
with media, Sharma informed that he had filed RTI application to know the details
of action taken by State Information Commission on a representation submitted
by another RTI applicant (victim) where the RTI applicant has sought the
intervention of the commission for allegedly receiving threat calls from an unknown
person to pressurise him to withdraw his RTI application.
Expressing concern
over the casual approach of the State Information Commission while dealing with
cases of Life and Liberty Raman said the commission should follow due process
of law being the apex RTI body in the state
and if the SIC itself fails to follow the rule book then it would not
only be unfortunate but setting a wrong precedent for other Public Authorites.
However,
a complaint under
section 15 of the Jammu and Kashmir RTI Act has also been filed with the registrar
of the commission on 03/May/2014 titled “Raman Sharma Vs PIO, J & K State Information Commission”
for not getting the information within stipulated period of forty eight hours.---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Published in JK Newspoint, Kashmir Times, The Northlines, Journey Lines, State Times on 05/05/2014.
http://www.statetimes.in/news/sic-disregards-rti-plea-life-liberty-clause/
http://www.thenorthlines.com/newsdet.aspx?q=79319
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